I’ve been curious about this – how the hoi polloi utilizes their thread subscriptions.
Until recently I never bothered subscribing to threads. I’m too much of a channel surfer. But now that I’m invested, it rules my SDMB time.
Me, I generally don’t subscribe to any threads I haven’t posted in - I let the system sbscribe me. In fact, sometimes I’m interested in keeping up with a thread, but instead of just subscribing to it, I post in it … even if it means posting something inane – a shocker coming from me, I know.
After that, my Subscriptions page is my default SDMB home page. BUT … I only keep threads that are less than two days old. Any thread in my subscription list that doesn’t have either “Today” or “Yesterday” underneath it goes bye-bye … (except “Death Pool” and “Stupid Republicans” … those have legs).
I’m constantly refreshing my subscription list to keep up. And then of course, I hit “New Posts” every once in a while to see what I’m missing. I barely ever just browse actual fora anymore.
So, right now, including this thread which will soon populate my list, I have 23 threads in my Subscribed list and, barring any new posts, about 10 of them will be culled by tomorrow. And that should keep me occupied.
I use it to monitor threads I’ve posted in. I kinda figure if I’ve posted, I should go back and see what responses there were/weren’t. So I look at my subscribed threads when I log in, then I do a New Posts search.
I subscribe to a lot of threads - all the ones I find interesting. When I visit the site, those are the threads I read over first, then I do a search for New Posts.
I subscribe, too. Mostly to threads I’ve posted in but also to threads I find interesting but where I don’t have anything to say. And I visit subscribed threads first, too.
I don’t bother to take anything out of subscribed threads all that often, though. So I have a few thousand in my user CP…obviously they don’t all come up because most of t hem are old. But they are all there technically.
I subscribe to threads if they have a useful link or two inside them that I may want for future reference. An alternative to bookmarking them within my browser.
Holy schnikes … see that’s what I was wondering about. I’ve 25 threads in my subscribed list and that seems unweildy to me. And I’m about the most unorganized person you’ll meet.
I never bother to clean them out and then they keep accumulating. If there were a way to just automatically get rid of them after about a month I’d be happy.
And I’m one of those who NEVER has unread mail in her gmail and HATES the spam folder to be even a little full!
I used to keep my list cleaned out, but I stopped bothering a while back, so there are several hundred subscribed threads in my list now. But when I click on the User CP link then I only see those that have been updated since I was last online, and that’s mostly what I care about.
Yeah, that’s my situation, too. When it tells me how many I have when I go to add a new one, it’s sort of a “WHOA BABY” moment but since I never see the rest (only recently updated), I don’t really deal with them.
Jack, do you delete each thread as you lose interest? It never occurs to me to do so, if it drops off the recently updated radar I forget about it.
Each morning I look for the ones at the bottom of the list that are older than yesterday … and {poof} … off they go. In fact, I was getting all nervy about having a thread in my list that was a week old, like I was going to be busted by the Obsolete Thread Police or something.
But sometimes a thread will be idle for several days, or even a few weeks, and then pick back up. If you’re deleting subscriptions after only a couple of days, you may be missing some late posts.
I figure it’s really easy for me to find current threads that I’ve posted to, so there isn’t a reason to keep track of those. I use subscriptions to keep track of threads I might want to reference back to later. Occasionally I take a look at the list, see if there is anything that doesn’t seem interesting any more, and delete the subscription.
Let’s see what’s there. Such classics as:
I stuck my wedding ring up my nose
If LotR Had Been Written By Someone Else!?
Testicle Waxing
Do they make PVC big enough to launch a goat out of?
Woman behold thy daughter, daughter thy mother, & BOTH OF YOU LOSE MY NUMBER!
and
Which reference websites are indispensable?